Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Jochen Knolle, Strategy and Drug Development

Dr. Jochen Knolle's experience spans 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry, and encompasses every aspect of drug discovery, development and registration. He was named as inventor of Quinapril and Firazyr. From 1978 to 1998 he worked in several functions in the central pharmaceutical research unit of Hoechst AG and Hoechst-Marion-Roussel (HMR).

In 1998 he left HMR to join Axys Pharmaceuticals, where he served as VP for Medicinal Chemistry and structural biology. In 2000 he joined Jerini and served until 2008 as Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D on the management board of Jerini AG in Berlin, Germany. At Jerini he initiated drug discovery projects in oncology and ophthalmology. The ophthalmology projects were advanced to the clinical phase and were transferred in 2006 to Jerini Ophthamology Inc. in NY USA. In 2001 he in licensed icatibant, a former research project of his, from Aventis. He developed icatibant for the treatment of hereditary angioedema a rare disease. In 2008 icatibant was approved in the EU and is marketed now in more than 40 countries including the US under the trade name Firazyr.

While at Jerini, Jochen facilitated and managed collaborations with Merck, Kos Pharmaceuticals and Abbott with upfront payments exceeding 30 m$. He supported also all private financing rounds of Jerini, cumulating in the IPO of Jerini at the German Stock Exchange Frankfurt in 2005. After Shire had acquired Jerini 2008 Jochen resigned from the management board of Jerini in October and established JCK Consult.

In addition to his consultancy activities Jochen acts as a board member for Anchor Therapeutics, Charité CRO and PPV-AG and he serves on the SAB of Bicycle Therapeutics. Since 2009 he acts as senior advisor for the TVM Capital group.

Dr. Bernd Müller, Preclinical Development

Dr. Bernd Müller is a specialist in Pharmacology and Toxicology and has over 30 years of industry experience in pre-clinical development. He was former global head of preclinical development at Schering AG/Bayer Schering Healthcare until 2007. Since then he worked as an independent consultant for different biotech companies.

Dr. Christoph Gibson, Medicinal Chemistry

Dr. Christoph Gibson has over 15 years’ experience in medicinal chemistry, comprising all aspects of target evaluation, discovery and preclinical development. He headed the Medicinal Chemistry group from Jerini AG until 2009. Since 2010 he works as a Director Medicinal Chemistry at AnalytiCon Discovery GmbH.

Prof. Dr. Michael Hildebrand, Pharmaceutical Development

Prof. Dr. Michael Hildebrand is a specialist in CMC and Biopharmaceutics and has over 25 years of industry experience in different functions of pre-clinical, clinical and CMC development. He was former global head of pharmaceutical development, Pharmaceutical Expert and Qualified Person at Schering AG/Bayer Schering Healthcare until 2007. Since then he worked as an independent consultant for different biotech/pharma companies. He is Professor for Industrial Pharmacy at the Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany.

Dr. Anne Lesage, Drug discovery and development

Dr. Anne Lesage is a senior life science professional with 18 years’ experience in drug discovery and early clinical development in big pharma (Johnson and Johnson) and 5 years’ experience in biotech companies. She has held different leadership positions with increasing responsibility: managing functional teams, steering cross-departmental project teams, functioning as biology head, coordinating outsourcing activities and external collaborations and establishing valuable partnerships. She brought 4 drug candidates to the clinic, and published 9 patents and 44 peer reviewed papers on basic science and novel drug candidates.

Today Anne Lesage is Managing Director of GrayMatters Consulting. In this position she worked with over 20 internationally based biotech companies in the framework of scientific due diligence analyses, risk assessments, design of cost-effective strategies towards exits, program management and business development.